Mixed reaction to HMRC’s digital plans

Agents small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and most self-assessment taxpayers will embrace HMRC’s new digital services according to research published by the department. However the reliability of the findings may be open to question because although the report was published in January 2016 the interviews were carried out in March 2015.

The document  Exploring the communications preferences of different audience groups to support the take-up of new HMRC digital services states that high take-up of online services and an appetite to do more online will lead to these groups ‘naturally’ migrating to the business and personal tax accounts.

Obvious attractions

The research found there was no need to ‘sell’ the business tax account to SMEs because the combination of ‘everything being in one place’ and general convenience were immediately apparent. Similarly many self-assessment taxpayers already use the digital tools. They were even...